by Anna Durand
Keely's brow furrowed even deeper. "He's hiding in the walls?"
"No, love," I said with a chuckle. "Lachlan means the wall around the castle. It has a walkway on top of it, though nobody's dared use it for a very long time."
She rubbed her arms. "Never thought I'd be in a castle fending off villains with a bunch of Scottish knights."
"Hey!" Gavin said. "I'm American, you know."
"Sorry, I forgot about you."
Lachlan strode over to Logan, who had taken a position at one end of the hall, watching out the window. "You're up, laddie. Don't let us down."
Logan gave one sharp nod, his expression deadly serious. "I'm on it."
"You're on what?" I asked.
"Grounds patrol."
I had no idea what Logan meant by "grounds patrol." Was that spy jargon?
He moved toward the doorway that led into the vestibule. "I'll be patrolling the grounds around the castle. Since the target seems to be coming down the roads, I'll head in that direction."
"Tulloch will see you."
"No, he won't."
"The woods aren't that dense. You won't have cover."
Logan's smile was not cheerful. It was pure arrogant certainty with a hint of excitement. "No one will see me. I'll be belly-crawling the whole way."
I tried to picture him doing that, but I couldn't comprehend anyone moving through the woods on his belly, crawling through the grass and weeds and mud and whatever else. That was when I realized my family had not been pulling my leg. Logan had been a spy. Who else would seem excited about rolling in the muck? Or hunting a bod ceann who'd blackmailed me.
Why would he do that for me? We hardly knew each other.
Logan exited out the vestibule and disappeared around the corner of the house.
Gavin, Lachlan, and Rory held their positions and monitored the grounds outside with unswerving focus. When we had all met up here, Logan had handed out two-way radios for us to communicate with, ones we felt certain Tulloch and his gang could not infiltrate to listen in to our conversations. I pulled my radio out and called Iain to check in. He reported nothing unusual.
"Don't you want to check in with Aidan?" Rory asked.
"What the bloody hell is Aidan doing here? I thought he was at the farm with the others."
"Aidan didn't want to miss any blood and gore, his words exactly."
I rubbed my forehead, but the headache starting behind my eyes had no intention of surrendering. "Why did no one tell me the plan was changed? And where is Aidan?"
"He's watching from the tower," Rory said. "And we didn't tell you because we forgot. You were, ah, busy with Keely at the time."
Busy with Keely. I supposed that was Rory's polite way of describing what she and I had done earlier.
I checked in with Aidan, who reported nothing amiss. Getting out my phone, I opened the tracker app. It showed Tulloch approaching Dùndubhan, not quite to the driveway yet.
With nothing else to do, I paced the length of the hallway, my hands linked behind my back, thinking more than was probably healthy in a situation like this. My mind conjured all the possible scenarios, or at least the ones I was capable of imagining, everything from Tulloch arriving armed and shooting us all down where we stood to Tulloch hurling bombs at the castle. For a few seconds, I even entertained the idea he might arrive in an alien spaceship.
Keely sat on the floor with her back to the wall watching me pace.
"Go into the kitchen," I said. "Grab a piece. We could be here a while."
"You think I can eat right now?"
I shrugged and kept pacing, spinning on my heels at the end of each circuit. I wished Keely had gone with the other women. Here, I had to worry about her and remember that I'd brought this danger into her world. If Tulloch laid one finger on her—
All our radios beeped at the same time. Iain's voice crackled through the speakers. "There's a car coming."
Logan replied from wherever he was outside. "I'm on it."
I decided not to question what Logan meant to do. His MI6 training must have equipped him for worse situations than this.
"There's some sort of activity," Iain said, sounding a bit confused. "Even with the binoculars I can't quite make out what's happening. Is that Logan? Or Tulloch? They might be wrestling."
I pressed the button on my radio. "I'm going out to see."
Keely leaped to her feet. "Not alone you aren't."
"You are not coming with me. It's dangerous."
"And you are not going out there alone."
I scowled at her. "Logan did."
"He's trained for this stuff."
Part of me needed to be angry at that statement, but I knew she wasn't insulting my manhood. She was afraid for me, which was the same reason I would never let her go out there. Besides, Logan was trained for "this stuff," as she put it.
"Gavin," I said, "you're with me."
He thumped his baseball bat on his palm. "I'm good to go."
To Rory, I said, "You and Lachlan watch out for Keely."
She gave me a tight-lipped look. "You expect me to cower in the corner while you're off catching the bad guy? You should know me better than that."
"I do." And her determination scared the hell out of me today. I grasped her shoulders. "Please stay here. I'll be distracted by worrying about you unless I know you're safe."
Her lips twisted as if she were trying not to scowl at me or scold me. She huffed out a breath and relaxed. "Fine. I'll be a good girl and stay put."
"Thank you." I handed her my phone. "Keep an eye on the thermal imaging app. The trees make it more difficult to spot heat signatures, but it's the best we've got."
She accepted the phone.
I kissed her forehead. "Be right back."
Gavin and I stalked through the vestibule and outside into the gloomy daylight. By the time we'd exited the castle compound, I could see two figures moving around within the shadows in the trees near a vehicle, their motions swift and jerky. When we reached Logan and his opponent, the battle was well and truly done. Logan had a slender, dark-haired man by the throat, the man's back flattened against the tiny car he'd driven here. Based on the way the car was angled across the gravel drive, I suspected Logan had leaped out in front of it like a human roadblock.
That's when I noticed the knife sticking out of the right front tire. How on earth had Logan hit a moving target with a knife? I didn't ask because it didn't matter. He had gotten his job done.
Unfortunately, it wasn't the result I'd hoped for.
I frowned at the stranger who was literally quaking in his boots, his lower lip quivering. "That's not Ron Tulloch. It's the English shit who ran down my mother."
"Aye," Logan said, his voice and his expression sharpened with a deadly edge. "We've been having a good blether. Tell Evan all about yourself."
My cousin shook the stranger's throat.
The pale man went paler. "I'm Bert Stamp."
"And what have you done?" Logan said, his words less a question than a command.
"I'm a messenger, that's all." Stamp cringed when Logan raised his other hand in a fist. "I've been spying on Evan MacTaggart and his lady friend for Ron Tulloch."
"How much is he paying you?" I asked.
"No payment. Tulloch said he'd help me get revenge on anyone I wanted."
Revenge as a form of payment for services rendered was a new one on me. Tulloch had found a kindred spirit to aid him in his quest for vengeance.
I scanned the trees around us and the section of the lawn I could make out from here. I couldn't see anyone else, but Tulloch had to be around here somewhere.
Logan pulled his hand away from Stamp's throat. "Where is Tulloch?"
The scunner seemed to have recovered a bit of his nerve, what little of it he possessed. He lifted his chin and did not answer.
Logan smacked him. "Next time I'll skite my fist on your face and dislocate your
jaw."
Stamp's eyes bulged. "Tulloch went through the wood to get where he's going. All he said was I should keep you busy out front while he gets his hands on the leverage."
I grabbed Stamp's shirt and leaned in close enough I could smell his sour breath. "What leverage, you pathetic wee toad?"
"He wants the one thing you care about most." Stamp's gaze darted to the house. "He's after your woman."
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Keely
I squinted out the window trying to make out what was happening in the driveway. The shade of the trees, deepened by the near twilight of this dark day, made it impossible to sort out what was going on over there. They must've been a hundred feet from the house. What if Evan lost it like he had when his mother was injured? What might he do this time? I wouldn't blame him for pummeling Ron Tulloch. The asshole deserved it.
But I did not want Evan to get hurt or to get arrested for assault.
"Should we go out there?" Lachlan asked Rory. "Looks like they might need a hand."
"It's three against two. They'll be fine."
"Unless Tulloch brought more friends."
More evil cretins? I clamped my fingers over the window frame, leaning forward to peer out at the shapes in the woods. What if Tulloch had too many men? What if…Shit. I didn't even know what else he might have or do.
"I'll get Aidan down here," Lachlan said. "He can watch Keely while you and I lend a hand out there."
Lachlan gestured at the window and the outdoors beyond it.
My gaze ricocheted around the hallway and landed on the display cases. Weapons. Lots of them. I could grab one and run out there to—Gah, I had no clue what I'd do to help. I was not built for being the damsel in distress who waited in an ivory tower while her man battled the enemy. Do something, my inner voice urged. What could I do?
I picked up Evan's phone from where I'd set it down on the windowsill. The screen had turned itself off, so I punched the button to wake it up. The thermal-sensing map appeared on the screen. A white spot blipped into and out of view so fast I couldn't be sure of what I'd seen. Was it a genuine heat signature? An animal? Nothing at all?
"What is it?" Lachlan asked.
"The thermal sensors are…I don't know. Maybe it was nothing."
Lachlan trotted over to me and peered over my shoulder at the phone. "I don't see anything now. It might've been a false positive or an animal."
"Yeah, I guess." What I'd glimpsed a moment ago niggled at me, though.
"I'll get the drone in the air so we can get a better look."
"Be careful."
He told Rory, "Toss me your bat."
Rory tossed his cricket bat end over end through the air. I would've been impressed if I hadn't been biting my fingernail and worrying about what was going on outside.
Lachlan caught the bat. He marched down the hall to the dining room and disappeared through the doorway. He must've been heading for the side door in the guest wing. It led into the courtyard.
I fiddled with Evan's app. He'd shown me how to switch from the sensors outside the castle compound to the drone feed. Which button did I tap for that? I saw two of them, one blue and one red. I hit the red one.
Nothing happened.
I tapped the blue one. The feed switched from infrared to a camera feed inside the house. It showed the guest-wing hallway and Lachlan turning down a shorter hall toward the door to the outside.
A figure lunged at him, whacking him in the head with the butt of a handgun.
"Rory!" I shouted. "Someone's in the house and they've got Lachlan."
He took off, unarmed, for the guest wing while barking orders into his radio. "Aidan, Iain, get down here. We're under attack."
Rory froze at the dining-room door, his gaze swiveling to me.
"Go," I said. "Nobody can get from the guest wing to this hallway without going through the dining room. I'll be okay."
He raced through the doorway and out of sight.
My gaze flew to the display cases yet again. Knives. A mace. Two swords.
Screw this. I was not standing here doing nothing while someone assaulted the men who'd volunteered to protect me.
I shoved Evan's phone in my pocket and approached the display case. Covering my face with one arm, I kicked the case.
The glass shattered.
My shoes crackled on the shards as I retrieved a good-size knife from the display case. Its blade was long and tapered, its handle round and perfectly shaped to fit in my hand. This was a dirk, the sign in the case told me, a medieval dagger.
I gripped it and jogged toward the dining room.
A gunshot detonated inside the house.
My ears rang, and the shock of the blast left me paralyzed for a second too long.
Ron Tulloch barreled through the dining room toward me, his face wild and his gun raised. He slammed his entire body into mine, tackling me to the ground. My head smacked into the wood floor. Stars flashed in my vision.
The dirk skittered across the floor.
A door banged elsewhere in the house.
Tulloch seized my throat in one hand and rammed the gun into my temple with the other. "I've got him now. Evan willnae do a bloody thing if yer in danger."
An unholy roar reverberated through the hall.
Ron Tulloch was yanked off me, his feet flailing in the air above my face.
I blinked rapidly, struggling to sort out what I was seeing.
Evan had Tulloch by the collar of his coat, but I couldn't get a good view of his face what with Tulloch's flailing body in the way.
"Watch out!" someone shouted from the direction of the guest wing, the voice muffled by the walls between us and them. "There's another one!"
Everything seemed to happen in fast forward, the movements a series of blurs. A figure rocketed into the dining room. Tulloch did something to Evan, and Evan hollered in pain. The newly arrived figure dashed past me right as Tulloch hit the floor on his knees. I couldn't tell what happened next, but there was a lot of scuffling and grunting and wordless shouting.
I clambered to my knees, snagged the dirk, and staggered to my feet.
Tulloch raised his gun at Evan, who was busy fending off another man. Gavin had just come through the vestibule door, but no one was near enough to Tulloch to stop him.
Except for me.
Gavin shouted a warning.
When Evan turned his head toward me, the man attacking him landed a nasty blow to Evan's chin. His head snapped back. Blood spattered from his mouth.
I rushed at Tulloch.
He saw me too late.
I howled like a banshee as I slammed the dirk into his shoulder.
Tulloch dropped his gun.
Yanking the knife free, I staggered backward.
He crumpled to the floor, landing on his side.
Gavin snagged Tulloch's gun and trained it on the man. "I know how to use this, asswipe, so don't move a muscle."
Evan punched his attacker. The man collapsed to the floor with a thud, unconscious.
Lachlan and Rory jogged through the doorway to the guest wing toward us. Rory sported a darkening bruise around his left eye. Lachlan had scratches on his face and, I suspected, a lump emerging on his head that his hair concealed. He looked more haggard than his younger brother, but Rory hadn't been struck on the head with the butt of a gun.
"Is everyone okay?" I asked.
A round of "ayes" from the Scots and one "yeah" from Gavin assured me they were. Evan hadn't spoken. He hadn't moved, staring at me from the other side of Tulloch.
"You sure you're okay?" I asked Lachlan.
He gingerly touched his head. "Not bleeding, so aye. Never got the chance to use the drone, though. This one jumped me." Lachlan nodded toward Tulloch. "Luckily, he's a poor marksman and hit the wall with his only shot."
"Is there anyone else?" Rory asked Tulloch.
The villain shook his hea
d.
Gavin nudged Tulloch with his foot. "If you're lying, I won't hesitate to take you down. I served in a war zone, jackass, which means I've shot people before."
"No one else," Tulloch said, his voice shaky and laced with panic. "I swear it. Only me, Stamp, and Wasserman."
I'd started to shake, though not from fear. The adrenaline rush that had fueled me throughout the castle-storming incident had evaporated. I was experiencing the flip side of it when my body needed time to readjust.
Evan's brows tightened the slightest bit.
I set the blood-stained dirk on a nearby table, atop a pile of brochures, and hugged myself. "Should someone call the police?"
"Already on the way," Rory said. He glanced at the shattered glass on the floor. "When you broke into the display case, it triggered the silent alarm. Evan installed the security system for us, so we have real-time monitoring of any alarms. His people will have called the police."
"I have the proof of what MacTaggart did," Tulloch whined. "You cannae bring the police in. I'll give it to them, and he'll be arrested."
Evan crouched beside Tulloch and roughly dug around in the man's pockets until he found Tulloch's phone. "Everything's on here, I'd wager."
The look on Tulloch's face, a mixture of fury and defeat, answered Evan's question.
Evan tossed the phone to Rory. "Have Emery and her friends take care of that."
"No one will care about the code you wrote for them," Rory said. "Not after what Tulloch's done today. But I'll use the app or whatever it is Emery gave me to demolish any files on his phone."
"It's called shredding."
Rory made a dismissive noise.
Tulloch tried to sit up but fell back down. "It's on my computer too. You'll never find it before the police do."
Rory laughed with menacing glee. "My wife and her friends had no trouble hacking into your system to delete anything that implicated Evan. You took more care with your phone than your computer." He clucked his tongue. "You ought to have better security if you're going to blackmail people."
Gavin planted his boot on Tulloch's chest. "Hear that, asswipe? A woman outsmarted you." Gavin threw me a smug smile. "Two women, actually. You're a real limp dick, aren't you, Tulloch?"